Authors: Jonathan Coe
‘Far from it, I —’
‘To resume.’ He waved me into silence with an imperious hand. ‘I had no intention of letting the odious lawyer share in my glory, and so on my return to Yorkshire I requested an immediate interview with Tabitha in person: which was duly arranged. The asylum could only be reached, I discovered, by means of a long drive over the moors, and my first sight of it filled me with gloom and trepidation. Probably there is only one more bleak and desolate spot in the entire area. I refer, of course, to Winshaw Towers itself.
‘I was shown into Tabitha’s private apartment, which was at the top of one of the highest towers in the building. My impression, I can assure you, was not one of talking to a madwoman. Certainly her room seemed to be in a severe state of disarray. It was scarcely possible to move for all the piles of magazines, all those dreadful titles to do with aviation and bomber jets and military history. But the woman herself seemed to be quite
compos mentis.
To be brief, I told her of my discovery, and she reacted quite calmly. She said that she needed a little time to digest the information, and asked if I would mind amusing myself for half an hour or so, by walking in the grounds. At the end of this period I came back to her room and she handed me a letter, addressed to Mr Farringdon. That was that. I didn’t inquire after its contents; merely put it in the post when I got back to town.
‘I got to know that journey pretty well: I must have done it four or five times after that, because very soon after I had posted the letter, Farringdon himself arrived in Scarborough. This would have been in September. It seemed that Tabitha had asked to see him, and that I had been trusted with the task of escorting him out to the Institute. They had several long interviews over the next few days. Whatever they discussed, it was kept a close secret, even from myself. Each time, I waited on a bench in the gardens, overlooking the moors, and read some pages of Proust – I think I must have got through most of the first two volumes – and every day when we drove home, my passenger would sit in grim and impenetrable silence, or chat idly about some wholly unrelated topic. It wasn’t until our very last visit that I was readmitted into Tabitha’s presence, and for once it was Farringdon who had to suffer this inglorious banishment.
‘ “Mr Onyx,” she said, “you have shown yourself to be a man of integrity. The time has come when I must trust you with some secrets regarding my family which I feel sure you will keep to yourself.” I can’t do the voice, I’m afraid. Mimicry has never been one of my talents. “In a few days’ time, thanks to the good offices of my brother Mortimer, I shall be released from this confinement for the first time in nearly twenty years.” I remember congratulating her in some awkward phrase or other, but she was having none of that. “It will only be temporary, I’m sure. My brother Lawrence persists in the most implacable opposition to any suggestion that I should be set completely at liberty. That is because he is a liar and a murderer.” “Strong words,” I said. “Nothing but the truth,” she answered. “You see, I have written evidence of his perfidy, and it is now my intention to put this evidence into your hands for safe-keeping.” I asked her what form this evidence took, and she told me about the note, whose nature, I believe, is already well known to you. It was her hope that this note was still to be found in the guest room where she had always stayed when visiting Winshaw Towers, in the pocket of a cardigan which she had last seen in the bottom drawer of the wardrobe. She proposed to retrieve it as soon as possible and pass it over to me: and to this end we agreed to meet on the afternoon of Mortimer’s birthday party, at the very edge of the grounds, near a spot which was consecrated, believe it or not, for the burial of various dogs which had had the misfortune to live out their miserable lives as part of the Winshaw family.’
‘Of course – and Tabitha met you there, all right, but you were interrupted by Mortimer, and he thought that she was jabbering away to herself in the bushes.’
‘Precisely. Luckily he didn’t notice my presence, although the scent of this cheap but rather exotic perfume to which I’ve always been partial – excessively partial, it has been argued – could hardly fail to escape his attention. In any case, it made no difference, because Tabitha and I had already concluded our business – without any success at all, I’m afraid to say. The note was nowhere to be found in her room, and she hadn’t had the time to look for it anywhere else. Besides, the house is enormous. It might have taken days, even weeks. However’ – and here he favoured me with a rather frosty smile – ‘it appears that you succeeded where even I, the fabled, the infamous, the redoubtable Findlay Onyx drew the most unequivocal of blanks. I wonder if you’d care to tell me how you managed it.’
‘Well, there’s hardly anything to say, really. I certainly can’t take any credit. Not long after Godfrey’s death, when Tabitha had first been sent away, it seems that Lawrence found the clothes which had been left in her room, and had them put in a trunk and taken up to one of the attics. Then after he’d died, and Mortimer and Rebecca moved into the house, they went through them all and came upon the note – which Mortimer recognized immediately, of course. He could still remember all the fuss there’d been about it at the time. As far as he was concerned, anyway, it was of little more than curiosity value, so when I met him a few years ago and we talked about the book I was writing, he let me have it. Simple as that.’
Findlay sighed with admiration.
‘Remarkable, Michael, remarkable. The economy of your methods astounds me. I can only hope that you don’t consider me, in the light of such glaring disparity, to be an entirely unworthy recipient of your confidences. In other words, perhaps the moment has come, at long last, for you to share with me the contents of this enigmatic memorandum.’
‘But you haven’t finished the story yet. What about later that night, when —’
‘Patience, Michael. A little patience, please. I’ve satisfied your curiosity on a number of points: surely I’m entitled to the same – or equivalent – satisfactions in return?’
I conceded this with a slow nod.
‘Fair enough. It’s in my wallet, in my coat pocket. I’ll just go and get it.’
‘You’re a gentleman, Michael. One of the old school.’
‘Thank you.’
‘There’s just one thing, before you do.’
‘Yes?’ I paused in the act of getting up.
‘I suppose a quick hand-job’s out of the question?’
‘I’m afraid so. Another cup of tea would be nice, though.’
Findlay retreated, abashed, into the kitchen, and once I had retrieved my wallet I went after him.
‘I don’t know what you’re expecting from this,’ I said, taking out the tiny, tightly folded scrap of paper and smoothing it out on the kitchen table. ‘As I say in the book, it’s only a little message that Lawrence wrote, asking for some supper to be sent up to his room. It doesn’t prove anything at all: except that Tabitha’s mad, possibly.’
‘I think I’ll be the judge of that, if you don’t mind,’ said Findlay. He took a pair of bifocals from the pocket of his shirt and stooped down to inspect the crucial piece of evidence which had eluded him for almost thirty years. It shames me to admit that I felt a mean glow of satisfaction as I saw the sudden disappointment cloud his face.
‘Oh,’ he said.
‘I did tell you.’
Lawrence’s note consisted of only three words, scrawled in tiny capitals. They were
BISCUIT
,
CHEESE
and
CELERY
.
The kettle started to whistle. Findlay turned off the gas and filled the teapot, then bent over the table again. He stared at the message for almost a minute: turned it over, turned it upside down, held it to the light, sniffed it, scratched his head and read it a few times more.
‘Is that all there is?’ he said finally.
‘That’s it.’
‘Well then, that settles it. She’s as mad as a hatter.’
He finished making the tea and we trooped back into the sitting room, where we sat for some time in a silence which was on my part expectant, on Findlay’s angry and thoughtful. He got up once to take another look at the note, which was still in the kitchen, and came back carrying it but without saying a word. After a while he laid it on the table beside him with a grunt, and said: ‘Well, you’ll be wanting to hear the rest of it, I suppose.’
‘If you wouldn’t mind.’
‘There isn’t much to tell. I’d arranged to dine with Farringdon that night. Scarborough was not famed for its cuisine, even then, but there was a small Italian place which I’d been known to use in the past – for the purposes of seduction, Michael, I’ll be perfectly frank with you – and it was there that he and I shared a few bottles of Chianti, even as the Winshaws were sitting down to their wretched family dinner.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘That was to be his last meal. I had no idea, at that stage. Didn’t even know that he and Tabitha had hatched any kind of plot together. Of course, I can see it all, in retrospect. The years of smouldering resentment; abstract hopes of vengeance suddenly made concrete; those long, secret talks in her room which must have driven him to a murderous frenzy. I can only speculate about the bonds formed, the vows taken, the oaths sworn, between those ill-fated partners in crime. He was in a sombre mood, as you can imagine, and not much given to talk – which I, fool that I was, put down to travel fatigue. He’d been down to Birkenhead for a few days, you see, and had only come back up again that afternoon. I couldn’t quite see the purpose of this trip at the time, but towards the end of the evening he was good enough to explain.
‘Just as we were about to leave the restaurant, he drew my attention to a large manila envelope he’d brought along with him. It was to retrieve this, apparently, that he’d made his journey home. “Mr Onyx, I’ve a favour to ask of you,” he said. “I want you to look after this, just for a few hours. And promise me, that if I don’t meet you at your office at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, you’ll deliver it into Miss Winshaw’s hands as soon as possible.” This seemed an extraordinary request, and I told him so: but he absolutely refused to divulge the undertaking which was to occupy him at this peculiar hour of the night. “At least tell me what’s in here,” I pleaded, reasonably enough, I think you’ll agree. And after a few moments’ hesitation, he answered: “My life.” Rather dramatic, wouldn’t you say? I tried to lighten the atmosphere somewhat by saying that if the contents of this envelope represented his life, then there didn’t seem to be much of it. He laughed bitterly at that. “Of course there isn’t much of it. This is what I’ve been reduced to, thanks to one man’s treachery: a few documents; some souvenirs of the old RAF days; a single photograph, the only trace of myself I’ve managed to leave behind these last twenty years. I want her to have them, anyway. She isn’t mad, Mr Onyx, I know that for a fact. They’ve got no right to lock her up in that place. But there’s been a terrible injustice done, and whatever happens to me, she’s the person to keep the memory of it alive.”
‘Well, I took the envelope and we said good-night. I knew now that something deadly was afoot, but it was no part of my job to stand in the way of – fate, destiny, call it what you will. I could see that the events to which I had involuntarily become witness had to be played out to their conclusion. And so we went our separate ways: I to bed, and Farringdon, as I afterwards discovered, first of all to steal a motor car from some luckless citizen–not a difficult task, for a man of his experience – and then to drive out to Winshaw Towers, there to gain entry through the library window which Tabitha, I surmise, would have opened for him, and to make his calamitous attempt on Lawrence’s life.’
I brooded on this. ‘From the way you’ve described him, I wouldn’t have thought he’d have much trouble polishing off a weedy little man like Lawrence.’
‘Maybe so. But Lawrence had made many enemies over the years, and had probably found it worth his while to learn how to defend himself against them. Besides, I suspect he was ready for trouble that night: he knew something was up. Farringdon’s best bet would have been to surprise him, if possible, but I’d wager he couldn’t resist having a few words with him first. Those wasted moments might have been critical.’
‘And then I suppose when he failed to show up in your office the next morning, you drove straight out to the house?’
‘You anticipate me superbly, Michael. Your prognostic powers defy belief. I was there shortly after ten. You probably know that although it can be seen from a great distance across the moors, Winshaw Towers is approached by a heavily wooded drive, and it was easy enough to conceal my car at some distance from the house itself and to arrive on foot without attracting any notice. In those days – and who knows, he may be there still – the premises were patrolled by an exceptionally lugubrious and unprepossessing butler by the name of Pyles, and I knew that, even with things being in such an obvious state of confusion, my chances of getting past him were not good at all. So I waited my moment, until I saw him disappear off in the direction of the outhouses on some errand or other, and then had no difficulty bluffing my way past some halfwit of an under-footman. I claimed to be a colleague of Dr Quince’s, I seem to remember.’
‘The family doctor.’
‘That’s right: some quack physician they used to slip a bribe to every three or four years to make sure that Tabitha remained safely under lock and key. I’d passed his car on the road a few miles back, so I knew that he’d already paid a visit. I said that I’d been asked to give a second opinion.
‘How to convey an impression of Tabitha’s state of mind that morning? She told me what had happened, quite calmly, without any apparent shock or agitation: but beneath her composure I caught glimpses of such despondency, such disappointment … Her last hope dashed, her one taste of freedom squandered, forfeited … I am anything but a man of sentiment, Michael: womanly feelings are entirely foreign to me, and yet that morning, absurd though it sounds, my heart almost broke. I handed her Farringdon’s envelope; she put it away in her writing case without opening it; and just then Mortimer knocked at the door, come to say his farewells. I had but a few moments to conceal myself: just time to leap into her dressing room and close the door, while Tabitha picked up her knitting and resumed her habitual air of abstraction. Their conversation was brief. When it was safe for me to emerge, she and I exchanged only a few more words. She had a considerable sum of money in her purse, I remember, and she insisted on paying me in full for my services. Then I took my leave. I slipped out through a back doorway and took a circuitous route to the car; and that was the end of my dealings with Tabitha Winshaw. I have not seen her since.’